Western home, Carry Ormsby bore some memorials of her summer friend away
with her, in the shape of books, plate, and jewels, such as her simple
means could have ill afforded. I felt that I could not have devised any
means more sure to gratify her worthy uncle, to whom such gifts had been
dross. He was a widower--the father of sons--indifferent to show, and,
besides that, unwilling to incur obligations from any one, such as gifts
entail on some minds.

There are persons made to give and others to receive, and neither can do
the work of the other gracefully. He and I were both of the same order,
so we accorded perfectly.

The autumn and winter passed very quietly. In Mrs. Stanbury and Laura I
again found my chief consolation. George Gaston was in the South, for
his health, on his own decayed plantation, with his uncle, who took
charge of it. But, in the spring, as Dr. Pemberton had stated, they were
all to go to Europe for some years. Laura would be married in Paris, if
at all. Every thing depended on some investigations Mr. Gerald Stanbury
was to make in person as to the character and position of her betrothed.
"For a Prussian nobleman may be a Prussian boot-black for aught I know,"
he observed, "and without derogation to his dignity, no doubt, in that
land of pipes and fiddlers. But an American sovereign requires something
better than that when he gives away the hand of the princess, his
relative, and endows her with a goodly dowry. Every man, we feel, is a
king in America."

Our circle of society was much enlarged by Evelyn after our first year
of mourning had expired. She insisted on taking me with her in turn to
Washington, Boston, and Saratoga Springs, then at their acme of fashion.
Mr. Bainrothe, who had by this time glided back into his old grooves of
apparent sociability in our household, accompanied us, and did all in
his power, it seemed, to promote our enjoyment and success.

Yet it was astonishing what an icy barrier still remained between us
two, and how perfectly I managed, without a conscious effort, to set a
limit to his approaches, even while treating him with apparent courtesy
and confidence.

Something in his eye, his manner, had become extremely unpleasant to me
since our social relations had been resumed. There was a controlled
ardor in his expression of face and even in his demeanor that I could
not reconcile with his position toward me nor understand, and yet which
froze my blood in spite of m